Written by Petrit Latifi
In 1907, Serbian Cetniks (Chetniks or “Četnici”) of Gjilan assaulted Albanian and Turkish troops. After three days of battle, the 29 Chetniks were killed. As reprisal, the Albanian troopers began assaulting the Serbs of Gjilan. This spread across Kosovo. According to Serbian diplomat Rakić, who resigned afterwards, the Serbian Chetniks did more harm to local Serbs than the Arnauts did in years.
“The “Pasjan affair”, as Rakić called it, lasted three days, after which all 29 Chetniks were liquidated, and reprisals against the Serbian population began throughout the Gjilan region and the wider Kosovo area. All the achievements of the Serbian-Albanian rapprochement, the personal and property security and judicial protection that had been won, fell through. Rakić’s dispatch from August 1907 listed individual cases of violence and crimes against Serbs, as well as the general climate of insecurity in which they continued to live. After everything that had happened, the Albanians began to arrange new outrages; this time, not only did they not have room for Serbs, but they were directly directed against the Serbs. Rakić’s resigned comment was that in the end “it can rightly be said that they [the Chetniks and those responsible in Belgrade] did more harm to the local Serbs in a few days than the Arnauts did in a few years!”
Reference
Balkan Academia 